A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat the colonel's wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor," she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude. I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and ran into the salon.
The veranda, with its green blinds of cane hanging down, and its matting on the floor, and its easy-chairs and tables, made a pretty room to look at. In the twilight, the fragile figure, pale, thin, dressed in white, would have lent interest even to a stranger. To the doctor, I suppose, it was only a "case." He pushed the blinds aside and stepped in, strong, big, masterful. "You are much better," he said; "you will very soon be able to walk about. Only be careful for a few days. It was lucky that the attack came when it did, and not a little earlier when we were in the thick of the trouble. Well, you won't want me much longer, I believe."
"No, thank you," she murmured, without raising her eyes.
"I have had no opportunity," he said, standing over her, "of explaining that I really did not know who you were, Miss Vernon. Somehow I didn't see your face, or I was thinking of other things. I suppose you had forgotten me. Anyhow, it was not until the other day, when I was called in, that I remembered. But I dare say you have forgotten me."
"No; I have not forgotten."
"I thought that long ago you had become Lady Duport."
"No; that did not take place."
"I hear that you have been teaching since your mother's death. Do you like it?"
"Yes; I like it."
"Do you remember the last time we met—on the sea-shore? Do you remember, Florence?" His voice softened suddenly. "We had a quarrel about that old villain; do you remember?"